Hollywood super producer Harvey Weinstein has accused studio Warner Bros of trying to bully his smaller production house into giving up its share of profits from the Hobbit films in exchange for naming rights to the forthcoming Oscar-tipped film The Butler, according to the Hollywood Reporter.

Warner and the Weinsteins are locked in a highly public battle over the title. Warner Bros claims it owns the name The Butler courtesy of a little-known 1919 silent comedy short with the same title, and has won backing from the Motion Picture Association of America's (MPAA) Title Registration Bureau, which mediates such disputes. But Weinstein, who has hired a high-profile lawyer, David Boies, to continue fighting his case, yesterday took to US TV show This Morning to bite back.

"I was asked by two execs at Warner Brothers, which I'm happy to testify to, that if I gave them back the rights to The Hobbit they would drop the claim," Weinstein said on the CBS news magazine show. "For a 1916 short? This was used as a bullying tactic. I think this is 100%. This was the big guy trying to hit the small guy."

MPAA chairman Chris Dodd also appeared on This Morning to argue for continued talks between the Weinsteins and Warner. "They need to sit down and resolve this," he said. "There's an appeals process, go through that. There's no reason why this needs to become as large an issue as it is." He later added: "Sit down and work it out. This is silly."

The Weinstein Company maintains a share of rights to The Hobbit, which gives them at least 2.5% of The Hobbit's first-dollar gross thanks to Bob and Harvey Weinstein's previous ownership of Miramax, which once considered making films based on JRR Tolkien's Middle Earth-set fantasy works. Warner Bros has denied any link between the Butler title spat and Peter Jackson's current film trilogy, with the studio issuing a statement dismissing Weinstein's comments.

"The Weinstein Company, as the New York Times has noted, is following an oft-trodden path of creating 'well-publicised controversies' in order to promote their films by disseminating deliberate misinformation about the true nature of this dispute," the statement reads. "The Weinsteins are sophisticated experts in this arena and three neutral arbitrators have penalised them for blatantly disregarding MPAA rules. It goes without saying that Warner Bros has no issue with Lee Daniels' film (never has) and fully supports the artistic goals of the film-makers. The Weinsteins' suggestions to the contrary are deeply offensive and untrue."

The Butler is seen as one of the early contenders for awards season success in 2014. The film's much-garlanded cast includes Oscar-winner Forest Whitaker as a servant called Cecil Gaines, based on the real-life White House butler Eugene Allen, who served presidents between 1952 and his retirement in 1986. Oprah Winfrey plays Gaines's wife, Gloria, with British actor David Oyelowo as his civil-rights activist son, Louis. Robin Williams, Melissa Leo, James Marsden, Minka Kelly, John Cusack, Alan Rickman and Jane Fonda appear as the various US presidents and first ladies Gaines meets along the way. The film is directed by Lee Daniels, of Precious fame, and will debut in the US on 16 August.

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